Japan Flora: Fronds ever­ green, glabrous, often somewhat brownish red; rhizomes short­creeping, densely leafy; fronds 10-80 cm. long, tufted; stipes 4-30 cm. long, pale brown, smooth, scaly at base; blades smooth) ovate to broadly lanceolate, 5-50 cm. long，3-20 cm. wide, acute to acuminate, slightly or not contracted at base, 3- or 4-pinnate, the rachis sulcate on upper side; pinnae nar­rowly ovate to broadly lanceolate, more or less 3-angled, usu­ally narrowed at tip, petiolulate; ultimate segmen切 coriaceous to thick-herbaceous, 3-4 mm. long, 2-3 mm. wide at the trun­cate and few-toothed broad tip, cuneate at base; veins not prominent, once or twice forked; sori marginal, 1 to 3 on the ultimate pinnules; indusia cup-shaped, depressed, often par­tially united. Sunny exposed rocks and roadsides in low mountains and hills.

Honshu (Kanto Distr. and westw.)3 Shi­koku, Kyushu; common. Ryukyus, Formosa, China to India, Polynesia) and Madagascar. 

var. littorale (Tagawa) Ohwi. Rhizomes with longer and broader scales; blades thickly coriaceous，ovate to broadly so. Along the sea; Honshu (Shimosa Prov. and westw.), Shikoku, Kyushu. Ryukyus to the Philippines.